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[Synoptic-L] Matthew's leper

John Lupia wrote -- ... John, But even if the crowd were close enough to witness a miraculous cure, but not close enough to hear what Jesus said, the

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, Apr 10, 2001

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John Lupia wrote --

>
>Response to Brian E. Wilson's suggestion regarding the crowd keeping
>distance from a leper. If the leper were readily visible the crowd
>would have kept a distance as the citations in the Torah I provided
>required. Unfortunately, if the crowd saw the leper they would
>certainly have taken notice of the miraculous cure rendering the
>secrecy foolish.
>

John,
But even if the crowd were close enough to witness a miraculous
cure, but not close enough to hear what Jesus said, the injunction to
secrecy would not have been "foolish" to the crowd, since they would not
have heard it, would they?

Moreover, if they were at a safe distance, would they in fact have been
able to see that the leper's skin trouble had disappeared? I would
suggest not necessarily so.

In any case, the injunction to secrecy was not that the man should tell
no-one that he had been cured. The man was in fact commanded to go and
tell, and show, the priest that he had been. The injunction was that he
should not spread it about that Jesus had cured him of leprosy. Jesus
did not want too much publicity.

My point is simply that in Matthew it is very possible that the public
meeting between the leper and Jesus included a private conversation
between the two men. If this is the scenario in Matthew, then it is not
true that the injunction to secrecy by Jesus in the presence of "great
crowds" is nonsense, for the crowds would not have heard it.

In Matthew's account of the healing of the leper, therefore, the
injunction to secrecy is not an indication of fatigue on the part of
Matthew in using the material we find in Mark.